1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image synthesizing apparatus that uses templates for synthesizing images.
2. Background Arts
A digital print system has been used in practical, that picks up image data photoelectrically from pictures on a photographic film, processes the image data in a digital image processing method, and prints an image on a photosensitive material by projecting light beams in accordance with the processed image data.
An image synthesizing method using such a digital print system has also been known in the art, wherein an image of a photographic picture is synthesized with an additional or ornamental image to produce a composite image, and the composite image is printed as a greeting card or the like. There are a variety of additional images prepared for the image synthesizing, including ornamental patterns, framing images, and calligraphic images.
For the image synthesizing, the digital print system is installed with a software program for the image synthesizing. Then an image synthesizing mode is added to the digital print system. In the image synthesizing mode, a control menu is displayed on a screen, for the operator to enter necessary commands for the image synthesizing on the control menu. As the commands, the user may designate a subject image and an additional image or a caption to synthesize with the subject image, as well as synthetic conditions, including the respective sizes and locations of the subject image, the additional image and the caption.
A mount area is defined on the control menu, and the images and the characters may be synthesized with one another in an appropriate layout on the mount area by operating a console consisting of a mouse and a keyboard. As having a large flexibility in the layout of the synthesized images, this method is advantageous in synthesizing a complicated composite image.
According to this image synthesizing method, however, it takes a certain number of operation procedures to produce a composite image and thus a pretty long time to print the individual composite image even where the layout of the expected composite image is very simple, e.g. where the same framing image or the same illustration is to be superimposed on the same location of a plurality of pictures.